I’m moving up from the kid table.

If you haven’t caught wind of my whining yet, you may not know I’m hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow. I love having people in my house. I love even serving food to people especially if it’s from a box from Costco. I just really don’t like the cooking and cleaning for a formal holiday. That’s a lot of pressure to get it right! And like most families these days we have to give a lot of careful consideration to food allergies, food aversions,and food quirkiness. It’s not like I can just go out and order the full meal deal from Bob Evans.

I’ve been a little stressed about getting it all right. I overhauled my kitchen with a professional organizer. I bleached the cabinets. I started cooking days ago in case I had to do it over. I had every task down to the day so I could pace it out. I also knew I have about 25 people coming over tomorrow so I knew I needed to use every place setting I have. I started hauling out totes and boxes, unwrapping old newspaper, tissue paper, and tea towels protecting my collection of dishes and serving pieces. I unwrapped my mother in law’s white milk luncheon plates. Then I came across my Grammy’s blue bird plates and my mama’s robin plates. In the next tote was my grandmother’s china, and then my own china.

I was caught up suddenly of remembering almost each of these woman carefully unpacking these dishes themselves for family dinners in their homes. I was touched by the memories of tradition and the reluctant understanding of coming into my own time of hostessing. I was saddened not to have most of these women with me today, cooking and clamoring in my kitchen. I realized I’m moving from the kid table.

I also realized I was once again focusing on the tasks and not the time.

I was focusing on the perfection instead of the people.

You’ll be glad to know I’ve stepped away from the task list. If it doesn’t get done by tomorrow that so be it. In the mean time, I went out to dinner with my family, played Mario Kart with my boys, and I’m now watching a movie my DH. It’s the holidays for goodness sake.

Do you get caught up in holiday madness? How do you by step the mundane tasks for the memorable acts?